Mathematical Biology Seminar

Michael Vershinin
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah

Complexity of transport on 3D microtubule networks

Wednesday, September 21, 2016, at 3:05pm
LCB 225

Microtubule cytoskeleton in cells is typically not a simple laminar
array of filaments that textbooks often portray. Instead, the filaments cross each
other at a variety of angles and separations throughout a cell body. In such an
environment, transport efficiency, directionality and timing no longer follow
directly from the properties of individual motor activity. Instead, many motors on
the same cargo can engage on two or more filaments at once and the resulting tug
of war then determines how the cargo navigates locally. I will discuss our
experimental system for modeling this situation in vitro and our latest
experimental results for the statistics of cargo transport at a single filament
intersection.